The Secret Diary of a Time Traveller, chapter 11

[Fitz Kreiner]

Day five, Capture.

Theoris and me were hauled out of the escape pod rather violently by the Drachnith. I felt absolutely tiny again, the Drachnith were almost three feet taller than me, and the one who had pulled me out of the pod was holding me up and I was dangling like a doll in his grip. To say that I felt helpless would be an understatement. I could feel my top stretching and starting to tear, the seams were digging into my under arms. I was grateful when I heard Theoris shout out to the Drachnith.

“You will put her down at once,” she shouted.

I thought it was a bad choice of words as the Drachnith just opened his hand and I had quite a drop onto my backside. It hurt, but at least I wasn’t being strangled any more.

“Release me as well,” Theoris was demanding.

To be honest, if she hadn’t stepped in, I’d probably be the one shouting about like that. After all, I had impressed the Drachnith Prime, according to the Doctor, although Theoris probably had the authority what with being a princess and all that.

“I am the Princess Theoris of Anubis, and this is my pet human. I will not tolerate any harm coming to her,” Theoris almost shouted at the Drachnith.

I have to honest with you; I could have walloped her for calling me her pet. I’m nobodies pet. I once hit a boyfriend for calling me his ‘bit of stuff’. Still, it seemed to have worked; the Drachnith was pointing its wrist gun at me, but as soon as Drachnith said what she did, it stopped and helped me to my feet. Somehow, I doubted that they were going to let us go though.

“I demand to see your Prime,” Theoris continued. She wasn’t going to let it drop.

“You will come,” one of the Drachnith said.

They were all wearing the same uniforms that I’d seen the soldiers wearing who attacked the station. I was trying not to think of that. There was a chance that we were on their city ship, the same ship which attacked the station, which meant that they had finished their attack, and I got the feeling that meant that the station was destroyed.

“What did you do to the station?” I had to know.

The Drachnith looked down at me; its eyes seemed to be on fire. I wasn’t going to show it any fear, I stood my ground. I’ve stood against Cybermen, Daleks and other monsters; I’m not going to be scared by a big fish cat thing.

“You attacked it, what did you do to it? Did you take any prisoners?” If there weren’t any prisoners; that meant one of two things, either the Doctor and Tom escaped, or they had been killed. I really had to know.

The Drachnith responded with what I thought was the rather clichéd response of “Quiet human” before pushing me in front of it.

I was walking with Theoris towards a door. I assumed that we were in something like a docking bay or something like that. Having watched a fair bit of sci-fi with my dad when I was a kid was paying off now I was travelling with the Doctor. Anyway, it was a bloody big place. There were several space ships in the bay, so that also gave me a clue that it was a docking bay. The space ships were very ugly, all angles and pipes and they were all a dull black, with red markings. Nothing like the space ships you see in sci-fi films, you could see scorches and dents from where they’d had small meteors or something hit them. Space is full of things that will knock into a ship.

The corridor that they lead us into was very small compared to the size of the docking bay, but it was still pretty big. But then, it would have to be considering the size of the Drachnith. Good job they weren’t as small as me, otherwise Theoris would have to be crawling along the corridor, rather than walking.

The corridors of the ship were all dark and full of shadows. It seemed that either the Drachnith either didn’t need a lot of light or they were in to energy saving. There were loads of pips along all the walls as well, which made them almost look like they were made for climbing. Well, I would be able to climb them; I doubt that Drachnith would be able to.

There didn’t seem to be a lot of doors about, but when there were, the pipes just curved round the door frames. I don’t know what they were for, or what ran through them, but I could hear hissing and gurgling along the corridors. It was really unsettling. The whole place made me feel uneasy and uncomfortable. It was like I really wasn’t meant to be there.

The Drachnith weren’t saying anything as they marched us through the corridors. Every time either Theoris or me tried to speak, they snarled at us and told us to be quiet. I once tripped over, and one of them nearly threw me down the corridor when it tried to pick me up. Theoris was really nice to me, helping me along. She managed to tell me to play along with her one time before she was cuffed round the ear for talking. I would have easily given the Drachnith a piece of my mind about that, but she stopped me. I think she think it would have killed me had I gone for it.

If the walls reminded me of some really industrial area, with the pipes and occasional bursts of steam from some of them, the floor was something else all together. It was like whoever had built this ship, couldn’t decide on a material they wanted the floor to be. Sometimes it was metal grids, and other times it could easily have been rock floors. I remembered what the Doctor had said about the ship being the size of a small moon and thought that maybe the Drachnith had built the ship out of a slightly smaller moon than a small moon, or a large asteroid or something.

I was rather proud of myself for that conclusion, I won’t lie to you. Mind you, like I said, having seen the sci-fi with my dad when I was a kid, that helped. I’ve seen a fair few things while I’ve been with the Doctor, so ships that have been half built out of rock won’t surprise me.

I had no idea how far or how long we walked, it could have been a good couple of miles, considering the size of the ship and the way the corridors weaved round and round. My legs were starting to ache, although that could have been something to do with having been cooped up for two days and not being able to walk about. At least in the TARDIS when we’re travelling, you can walk about. I’ve even seen a swimming pool and a gym in there before now, so there’s plenty of exercise to be had there.

We eventually came to a lift, not like the super advanced disk lifts of the Anubians, the metal and mirrored ones you get in trendy shopping centres or the plush ones I’ve seen on some space ships and stations. This lift seemed to match the industrial style of the rest of the ship. There were metal grids, dim lights and a heavy smell of oil. The doors to the lift were like the old style folding metal doors that you see in old films, only a bit more alien. When the lift was moving, I saw that the lift shaft, like the corridor floors, was part metal and part rock.

Eventually the lift jerked to a stop. It was very clunky, and made me think of lifts in coal mines. I remembered going down one when I was younger with my dad when we went to a coal mine that had been turned into a museum. The door opened and the Drachnith guards literally pushed Theoris and myself out. I made sure that I took a good look around. We were in what could have been a hall; it was like the one in Rameso’s governor office, only not as grand. It was impressive though, carved out of rock with metal supports. It looked a bit like a cave filled with steam pipes and engines with dirty, oily industrial piping and metal plating.

There were corridors going off both sides, but it was the large double doors opposite the lift that I was interested in. Well, I say I was interested in them, I had no choice but to be interested in them as the Drachnith were pushing us towards them. The doors were huge, easily twenty feet high, and riveted metal. They must have weighed a tonne! The Drachnith opened them easily though. What was inside was clearly meant to be part throne room and part war room. There was a large table to one side with seats placed around it. At the back was a large seat, again, metal and rock and there was a Drachnith sat on it.

Even from this distance, I could recognise the Drachnith Prime. To me, they all look pretty much the same, as do most Anubians. I don’t mean that to sound racist, but they do, I’ve spotted that with aliens. It’s like animals; we find it hard to tell them apart. Anyway, I could tell it was the Drachnith Prime by his clothes. He didn’t seem to be concerned that the throne could have been getting oil over his robes. The Drachnith pushed us over and then forced us onto our knees.

“Majesty, we bring the prisoners. They were taken from the pod,” one of the guards said from behind me.

“The last pod from Intheop?” the Drachnith Prime asked.

“The same Majesty,” the guard replied.

I heard the same growling roar from the Drachnith Prime as I heard when I repeated their salute to him back on Intheop. That must have meant he was pleased with something, or at least, that’s what the Doctor told me at the time.

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but Theoris got to her feet beside me and took a couple of steps towards the Drachnith Prime before the guards behind her could grab her to stop her.

“I am Princess Theoris of Anubis. You will show me the respect and authority deserved to a member of the Imperial Family,” she said.

Good on you girl, I thought. She’s certainly one to stand up for herself, she’s not afraid of the Drachnith. I have to admit that I was a little scared of them. Like I said, they were three feet taller than me, and rather scary looking. I certainly wouldn’t want to argue with them.

“I know full well who you are, Princess,” the Drachnith Prime said, getting to his feet and walking towards Theoris.

“Then you know you should treat me with dignity and respect. And I demand that right should be extended to my pet,” Theoris said, looking round at me.

I still felt something rise in my guts when she said that. I know she was trying to protect me, but it was the idea of being called someone’s pet that got to me. I wasn’t expecting what happened next though; the Drachnith Prime lashed out and hit Theoris around the side of the head casing her to nearly fall over. I was getting to my feet when I felt the hand of one of the Drachnith guards behind me on my shoulder.

“You are a prisoner of war, Princess,” he said with what I thought was a sneer. He then looked at me and walked over. I could hear the hissing sound of his legs when he walked over. He grabbed me and pulled me up to his face. “And do not think I do not recognise the human. There was only one on Intheop, this one. She travels with the Time Lord,” he said before dropping me again.

It knew who I was, I guess it must have remembered me from the whole salute thing I did with it. It unsettled me a bit, and so did the phrase ‘prisoner of war’. I know what happens to prisoners of war, well, at least on Earth; concentration camps, work parties, death camps. Either way, it’s solitary confinement or being worked to death or just plain death. I just hoped that the Drachnith were not like that, but the whole attack on the station made me think otherwise. Other than any prisoners they would have taken, they would have killed millions of people. The thought sickened and terrified me.

“What are you going to do with us?” I finally got round to asking.
The Prime looked down at me. I could still smell the rotten fish-breath from when it picked me up. “In time, little human,” it said before looking back up at its guards. “Put them in a cage, a royal suite,” it said. I’m sure that it added the royal suite as irony. It was almost a bond-villain afterthought.

A guard behind me picked me up and almost threw me towards the doors. I saw, as I was thrown across the throne room, Theoris being pushed the same way. It was when we were being led out of the throne room that I noticed other Drachnith in the room, towards the edges. I’d not spotted them before because of the shadows. There were what could have been maps on the walls, or something that they were grouped round. My only guess was that they were planning their next strike in the war, but why they didn’t use computers and holograms, I didn’t know. Or maybe they were and the screens were as dark as everything else.

We were lead back down loads of the same sort of corridors that we were lead up to the throne room. That was another thing that made me wonder; why a throne room and not a bridge, unless the bridge was somewhere else. We took another lift down to another level of the ship. There were louder clanging and clanking sounds down there and there was loud gurgling and hissing coming from the pipes.

It was colder down in the lower levels of the ship and the floors were mostly metal. Whether we were in a metal part that had been added under the rock structure or it was a large cavern that was built into, I don’t know. I hadn’t seen a single port hole or window since I’d been on the ship.

The Drachnith guards stopped us at a door and made us go through. It was definitely a cell. I knew this before we even entered the room. Inside, it was a plain metal room with a bench along one side. That was clearly meant to be the bed. There was a single pipe along the opposite wall, disappearing into the opposite wall to the door. They pushed us in and then closed the door behind us.

“What are they going to do with us?” I asked Theoris as soon as the door closed.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry Lady Jess,” Theoris said. She sat down on the bench and stared at the opposite wall in silence for some time.

I got the feeling that I wasn’t going to get anything from her for a while. I wasn’t too sure what to do with myself. There was no window and nothing to do in the cell. Each wall was one large plain piece of metal and so were the ceiling and floor. There wasn’t even a rivet. The only things in the cell were the bench and the pipe. I sat on the bench beside Theoris for a while. It wasn’t comfortable, and I got the feeling it wasn’t meant to be comfortable.

I had no idea how long I sat there. I found out in the cell that my watch had inconveniently stopped. After a while, I got very bored of sitting there in silence. I knew Theoris wasn’t up for talking still. I could tell that the Drachnith Prime had hurt her, both physically and her pride. I started to pace up and down the cell and that didn’t take long to get Theoris talking again.

“Will you sit down please, Lady Jess. You’re making me uncomfortable,” she snapped.

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I’d been locked up before since joining the Doctor, but this felt different somehow. “How can you be so bloody calm about it all?” I shouted. “They killed millions of your people and my two friends and now they’ve got us here to put into a death camp or something.” I was almost trembling when I finished.

“No, Lady, they won’t,” Theoris replied. She looked at me with one of those looks that made my blood go cold. I then knew that she knew what the Drachnith had in store for us. “They have me prisoner, it is a moral victory for them. They can use me to force my father into surrendering Anubis and the Prefecture to the Drachnith.”

Well, that cleared up why they didn’t want to kill her, but not me. Not that I’m not grateful they didn’t, so I asked her. I felt both joy and horror at her answer.

“If they spared your life, then they either want you for labour, or more likely they want to use you to control the actions of the Doctor,” Theoris explained.

I took her at her word, she knows the Drachnith. But that meant that at least the Doctor could have escaped the Drachnith attack on Intheop, and if he was alive, then he’d be here soon to get me out of this. If I couldn’t escape first that is. Although at that time, it seemed harder to do. When the Master had me prisoner, I escaped through a sky light, this had no sky light. It would be a tough one; maybe try to make a break for it somehow when the door was opened, only then I’d have a Drachnith to deal with. Imagine my surprise when I was looking at the door and it opened revealing an Anubian.

He stepped into the room carrying a tray with food and cups of something on. He looked like he’d been tortured, his fur was scraggy and patchy, some places bare skin was showing, and he had a jagged scar down one side of his face, going right through one of his eyes. I was about to tell Theoris to run for it when the Anubian thrust the tray into my hands. I then saw the two guards outside and then the door closed. He was a slave.

It was then I noticed what was on the tray as well as the food. Quickly and with a feeling of excitement growing in me, I put the tray on the bench beside Theoris and picked up the folded piece of paper that I’d spotted.

“What is it?” Theoris asked, leaning forwards.

“I doubt it’s a menu, considering the Drachnith, although it could be the bill,” I said.

As soon as I opened it my hands started to tremble in excitement and joy. A simple couple of sentences that made my heart skip a beat and a grin spread across my face. I was aware of Theoris saying that she couldn’t read the alien script on the paper, but I could; a simple message, but so in his style;

“In the words of Phil Lynott;
‘Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak!’
Be ready,
Tom x”